


Chris Rob

by emimix3



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Awkward Crush, Celebrity Crush, Heartbreak, Jack being Jack, M/M, One-Sided Attraction, Queer Themes, Sexuality Crisis, Teenage Drama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2020-12-31 17:54:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21149792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emimix3/pseuds/emimix3
Summary: "How did you know you liked men?" Bitty one day asked.Jack remembered clearly how he realised. Butno one. Can. Know.





	Chris Rob

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Istadris](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Istadris/gifts).

> Hi ! I began to write this last year, after a discussion with Istadris, and I never got around finishing it until I got reminded on discord about it. So here it is, teenage Jack being an idiot - I hope you'll enjoy !

Listen, there was one thing to know about Chris Robinson; Chris Robinson was A Big Deal.

He was Hollywood’s sweetheart for the whole duration of his twenties, first in second roles and then quickly starring in romantic comedies and a few dramas, and everyone loved him because he bloomed from cute to handsome and he was so sweet in every single one of his interviews and at every event he was invited to, and he was acting quite well, even if a lot of his movies, especially at the beginning, weren’t that great.

Then, around the time he turned thirty, he began to star in a couple of action movies, and to have the muscle definition that goes with it. He went from handsome to, well, HOT.

So yeah, of course, he had a whole lot of fans, and one of them was Jack Zimmermann. Not that he’d tell you.

Jack was thirteen, after all. You can’t really tell everyone, when you’re a teenage boy, that you are a big fan of an actor for more than the two action movies he recently was in.

Because, well, Jack… Jack _loved _Chris Rob, okay? He maybe only had recently discovered him in _Fatal Phones 3 _(where he played a spy in a suit, Jack was only human), but the actor left such an impression that Jack may or may not have bought his entire filmography that he binge-watched in one night. And binge-watched several more times since. And he may or may not have gotten _a few _posters for his bedroom. Well, no one said anything when he had hockey players all over his walls. Surely, they wouldn’t say anything either if there’s posters of a romantic comedy actor.

They wouldn’t, would they?

Admittedly, maybe, Jack had a little crush.

Or, not, he wasn’t really sure? Like, if Chris Rob was in front of him and told him “I’m gonna dick you down”, then sure, Jack would have said yes, even if he had no idea of what “being dicked down” really means, but then probably a lot of straight men would think the same about Chris Rob.

Like, it’s perfectly normal to find another man attractive, no homo and all that. That just means that like, you want to _be him_, not _be with him. _It’s not like he really had a frame of reference on crushes and stuff like that anyway, he was thirteen-almost-fourteen and until now only hockey counted, so he hadn’t even held a girl’s hand or whatever.

But one morning not long after his fourteenth birthday, after watching the night before yet another time _Love Letters from Buckingham, _that turned into, right before falling asleep, yet another time of, uh, going back to _admire_ stills of the movie (from the sex scene with frontal nudity) that resulted, after he woke up, _yet another time_ in the need to change the sheets before his parents notice; well this morning Jack Zimmermann accepted that maybe, just maybe, his fantasy of a future with a nice wife, two kids and a dog won’t be it for him.

His future will involve Chris Rob dicking him down (and he hoped it meant what he now thought it meant) or it would be a subpar future.

That was probably very homo, but sue him.

He was young, and he had an unattainable celebrity crush, he was probably gay -not that it mattered because no other man would hold a candle to Chris Rob), but he was happy so seriously, sue him.

* * *

Not so sadly for Jack, when you dad is Bad Bob Zimmermann, hockey player extraordinaire and your mom is _Alicia I-use-a-César-as-a-bookend Zimmermann_, there’s no such thing as an unattainable crush.

He had begun to care a bit more about the artistic half of his genes lately. One night he realised he couldn’t die without knowing what kissing Chris Rob would be like, so he took more seriously the theatre classes he was half-heartily attending to (both to please his mom and to do something about his timidity. Didn’t really work), because Chris Rob was an actor, and if _Jack _became an actor, then maybe he’ll get to film with Chris Rob and _they’d get to kiss_.

His realistic fantasy ended here, and his _actual_ fantasy continued with Chris Rob realising he really, really liked kissing Jack so they’d continue kissing and they’d get together and some dicking down would be involved. Then they’ll get married in Vegas, or maybe not because Chris Rob recently married this one actress, but Jack wouldn’t mind being his hidden secret on the side or something.

But he didn’t even need to wait for meeting his idol.

One day, he was coming back from hockey practice and his mom was in the living-room; when she saw him enter, she greeted him and then she told him:

“Oh, Jack, remember this movie I was telling you about? The historical drama I’ve signed for?”

Uh, _of course _he remembered. It was an _historical drama_.

“I just learnt that Chris Rob was casted in it too. You’re a fan of his, aren’t you? Isn’t that great?”

Jack stopped. His hockey bag fell from his shoulder.

_Isn’t._

_That._

**_G R E A T._**

His mother -his mom, his favourite woman on this planet, half of his gene pool, his hero, his model-

Was going to

Work with _Chris Rob._

That wasn’t _great_. That was_ incredible._

Suddenly, his fantasy wasn’t that far away.

* * *

Jack sometimes could manage to go to LA for a few days while his mom was filming something. Needless to say, because karma is a bitch, he hasn’t been able to do so at all when his mom was with _Chris Rob _to film _Moments of Jade_, the shooting being in the middle of the season and of the school year. 

So no, his mom left for five weeks to hang out with _Chris Rob _while he was stuck in Montreal studying for math exams, and he was. So. Bitter.

He aggressively watched all his movies twice while she was away.

At least, she came back with signed posters in her luggage, and a great, perfect, grandiose announcement:

“Oh, and Chris was a sweetheart, I understand why you like him so much Jack. He’s coming to Montreal next week, so I invited him for a dinner here; Robert, honey, can you phone the caterer for a dinner for five next Saturday?”

Karma was an okay gal.

* * *

So now, Jack had the advantage of being in his home turf for the Meeting with the love of his life, and the disadvantage of being a greasy teenager.

During the whole week, he was so stressed that he barely slept (only eight hours a night, that’s not normal for an athletic teen boy) and his acne got out of hand. It was bad to the point that it was the area on his cheek that was standing out the most was the one where there was not one zit.

He tried his best to cover it all with his mom’s makeup, but it only got worse. It looked like he was peeling. So, he went with no makeup on, because a real man will accept you regardless of your skin’s state, or something, he read it in one of the teenage girls’ magazines in the school library this week. 

He may be in no state to sway Chris Rob with his looks, but boi, he could do so with his intellect. He was a clever kid, he had good history grades and he had memorised the stats of at least seventy NHL players. He could also keep a decent conversation about butterflies, because he used to read all the books about them back when he was six.

Of course -_of course._\- when Chris Rob and his wife Helena Lopez-now-Garand-because-she-had-been-lucky-to-meet-Chris-Rob-before-he-met-Jack-and-Pierre-Garand-is-Chris-Rob-real-name-not-his-stage-name arrived at the Zimmermann’s, Jack hadn’t been able to say anything about butterflies. 

He tried to introduce himself, but he got betrayed. By his own body.

His voice failed him.

He thought he had gone through the worse already, and that his voice had settled, but no, fucking puberty, how _dare you_, body, you’re in top condition, no other teenage boy in a radius of fifty kilometres has a body half has well kept as his, fucking fuck, why today-

“Haha,” his father had said, “he’s just really impressed, I think. Jack’s a big fan of yours.”

“Oh, really?” Chris Rob had answered, and his voice was hot like a bird pepper and Jack was melting. “That’s great! You’re acting, too?”

Jack only nodded, red in the face (and the neck, the arms, the hands), not trusting his vocal cords anymore.

“Cool! I hope we’ll play together one day.”

Time of death: 19:14. Please, play Evanescence, and the OST of _Fatal Phones 3_ at the funeral. 

The dinner in itself wasn’t that awful. Yes, Jack was awkward from beginning to end, and blushing, but he had so much acne that it hid the colour of his cheeks. And he barely talked, but was listening to the adults a lot -they were chatting about buying houses and that was awfully boring, how can one be in the sheer presence of someone as incredible as Chris Rob and want to talk houses. By the time of dessert, Chris had turned his attention to Jack and they had been able to talk a little bit. Jack was more comfortable, and they were talking about hockey, so it was his element. His moment to bright. He even made him laugh. Once. Jack knew that his life had peaked at this very moment.

* * *

For the next several weeks, Jack was sure he hadn’t a crush. He was in love. He was doodling hearts and “Jack Robinson” all over his notebooks in class, and was listening to country songs about finding your other half, imagining him and Chris Rob walking down the beach, hand in hand. It wasn’t just a question of being dicked down, now. He had _feelings_, and he was fourteen, and he was at the top of the world.

Mentally, he was preparing himself for his next meeting with Chris Rob. He was seeing a dermatologist for his acne, and his voice had really settled down now, and by the time the premiere of _Moments of Jade _was around the corner? His body was ready.

_And _he now knew the stats of _eighty_ hockey players.

He usually didn’t like going to movie premieres, because it meant putting on a suit and being taken in photo by dozens of people and he hated flashes, and people there were all bizarre and weird, but sometimes for love you gotta make sacrifices, and Jack Zimmermann was fourteen and ready to fight a mountain bear to be in a twenty feet radius of Chris Rob. And because he was fourteen and full of rage, hormones and blue Gatorade, truth is, he would have a chance to beat the bear.

Jack only managed to get a glimpse of Chris before they got into the cinema.

“Hi, the Zimmermanns!” he had said, smiling, and Jack had to physically stop his heart to pop out of his chest. “Excited?”

“We couldn’t get Jack to calm down,” his mom had laughed, as if he was a mere _child_. “He loves history, he loves drama, and he missed a day of school to come here, so there’s a lot to be excited about.” 

“Well, it must also be great to go watch a movie your mom is the star of, isn’t it?”

_My mom may be the star of this movie but to me _you_ are the star of all the films you’re in and you’re the star of my life, _Jack wanted to say if Jack wasn’t a chicken. _I already cleared space on my Chris Rob shelf to expose this DVD, and I’ve hung the poster with your face on it. It’s the first thing I see when I wake up._

“I love the Victorian era,” he just said, because he was a massive tool, and Chris Rob nodded at him so maybe it wasn’t that bad. Or maybe it was. Who knows. Not Jack.

Okay so thing is.

Jack is in love. In incredible, painful, but beautiful love with Chris Rob. Chris Rob may barely know his existence and only consider him as the child of his co-star because he’s 32, straight and happily married but that is beside the point okay.

In a way, Jack knew that they were more star-crossed lovers that would only be able to be together in their next life and that they hadn’t really any kind of chance in this one.

But.

BUT.

That is not a reason to show him the reality of the world this way.

Karma is a bitch, period.

When you’re in love, there are a few things you don’t want to see. Well, he had been warned.

In the middle of the movie (great, awesome, movie, with Chris Rob in Victorian clothes), his mom had said:

“You may want to close your eyes, honey.”

He should have, oh boy, he should have.

Because the next scene was a four and a half minutes scene where his mother and his crush, no, his Love, were having sex.

There was nothing that destroyed one of your fantasies more than seeing the man of your dreams going down on your mom.

At fourteen, barely one year after he became one, Jack Zimmermann was a broken man.

* * *

He destroyed every single copy of _Moments of Jade _that crossed his path. 

He couldn’t hear “Jade” without flinching and remembering Chris’ bird pepper voice chanting it while he was making out with his mother.

He couldn’t watch a single movie of Chris Rob, actually. Good thing he wasn’t a blockbuster actor, or that in them he often was in second roles.

His parents didn’t even notice his sudden lack of interest for him, because he didn’t use to _talk_ about him that much. He had always kept it for him only, and he talked about hockey to people.

Now that he wasn’t spending his nights hunting interviews and gossips about his celebrity crush, and his afternoons in the acting classes, he got even better at hockey. It was making his parents proud, and he liked hockey, and when he got in the Q no one cared about romantic comedy actors, so it was the ideal place to forget and nurse his heartbreak.

One night, he went to Kent’s billet family’s place after a party where they drank a bit a lot. They spent the night dicking down, and in the morning, when Kent was still sleeping, Jack began to look around the shelves to consider his few belongings. Most of them were Naruto mangas.

“You’re looking at my stuff?” Kent, half asleep, had said.

“Yeah… I shouldn’t?”

“We had each other’s dicks in our mouths five hours ago, so go wild with the snooping I guess.”

Jack put back down the Naruto manga, and looked at the few DVDs scattered here and there.

“Most of my collection is still at my mom’s. I just took my faves.”

And here. There was.

_Moments of Jade._

Jack almost dropped it as if it burnt his hand.

“Oooh it’s my favorite movie of all times! It’s just so great! I mean you’re a hockey bro, so I guess you’re not sensible to the beautiful art of romantic drama, but if you gotta see one, watch _this one_. My copy is signed by the director AND Chris Rob, how cool is that?”

That was a nightmare. _Moments of Jade_. He hadn’t heard this name in so many years. (Three months. It _was_ a pretty popular movie.)

“I… I know it.”

“You do? Oh- Oh yes, your mom is in it!”

“I hate this movie.”

Kent frowned, trying to comprehend how on earth someone would criticise this masterpiece (that got an Oscar for the costumes).

“Oh, yes. The sex scene. Your mom. Uh. If it can reassure you, she’s not the part _I _was focusing on? Still, must be awkward to see your mom making a sex scene.”

“Yeah. Uh. What you said.”

_Moments of Jade _disappeared from Kent’s shelf the next time Jack came over.

* * *

The first time Kent came to Samwell, it wasn’t to convince Jack to join the Aces or to brag about his newly won Stanley Cup.

“Jack, I know you took my DVD. I just know it.”

“Prove it.”

“I cannot prove it but- I _know_ it’s you. What have you done with it? If I gotta suck you off to know, I will.”

Kent never got to know.

* * *

One day, Bitty had asked him:

“How did you know that you liked men?”

And Jack thought back of this morning years ago when he woke up sweating, with a hard on and dirty sheets and the sudden realisation that it wasn’t a regular, no-homo occurrence, and that back then, any day, anytime, Chris Rob would have had his ass.

“Oh. I’ve always known.”

“Really? Personally, I had a celebrity crush on Orlando Bloom. You never got one of those?”

“Bud, _you’re_ my celebrity crush.”

_No. One. Can. Know._

* * *

There was a charity event for Hasbro’s Children Hospital, and Jack was more than happy to go. He still didn’t like suits and flashes and big events like those, but now he got to show off Bitty, who loved suits and flashes, _and _he got to help children, so.

They already were inside the venue, arm in arm and chatting with Tater and two unknown ladies when Bitty elbowed him.

“Look, hun! I love this actor, let’s go talk to him.”

Jack turned.

He saw his life passing in front of his eyes.

A way too big part of it involved ice, it was sadder than he expected.

Because here, right here, was Chris Rob.

Now well into his forties, getting grey on the temples and wrinkly on the face and just so- so mature, and handsome, and oh no Jack wasn’t ready he didn’t expect that he hadn’t seen him or pronounced his name in _years _what should

Aaaand Chris Rob had just noticed them and was walking here, smiling, with a glass of champagne in hand.

Jack was god-honest dying of death.

“Hey! Isn’t that Alicia’s kid? Jack, you grew up so much!” Chris was saying, and he was grinning with the force of ten suns.

“_Yeuuuuuuurgh._”

Honestly, the sound Jack made wasn’t human. Was it that, the ‘bottom keysmash’ Kent was raving about?

But Chris Rob – mature, greying, **H O T** Chris Rob was right here, and Jack just managed to grab Bitty’s hand that was resting on his elbow because he needed to _grip_ something.

And Bitty – sweet Bitty, perfect Bitty, happy Bitty, handsome Bitty – began to talk with the guy, and they were _laughing_ and talking about the event, and Jack just wanted to die, kinda, because his fiancé was talking to his teenage crush as if it was _nothing_.

“And Jack, how is the NHL?” Chris Rob suddenly asked. “I remember you being a big fan of hockey – all my knowledge in the sport comes from you.”

_He remembered_.

“It’s. Good. I love it.”

“Oh, that’s great, then! I’m glad for you!”

_He was so nice._

Adult Jack definitely understood why Teenage Jack had a crush on the guy.

Chris Rob quickly bid his adieux then, as he saw an old friend entering the room, and as Jack saw him walk away, all the tension of his body seemed to leave in one go and he didn’t even feel himself sighing.

Bitty did. He squeezed his hand, and he asked:

“You okay?”

“Mmmh? Yeah, sure.”

“You were weird with him. Is there… A problem with him? Do you hate the guy?”

“What? _No_, I don’t _hate_ the guy…”

“You know, you have the right to not like everybody, and-”

“I don’t _hate the guy_, Bits. I’m just… Tired.”

Bitty nodded at that, before checking the hour – and then, he pulled on Jack’s arm, a little, to motion them towards the exit.

“Let’s go, then. It’s getting late already.”

“You sure? I mean-”

“Yeah. I’m _so_ hungry, the buffet here is a joke. Before we go back home, we should grab-”

“A hummus burger with extra sauce-”

“-a hummus burger with extra sauce. Gosh, you’re reading my mind, hun. And there’s dessert at home, unsurprisingly.”

“Dessert or _dessert_?” Jack chirped, as they reached the cloackroom to get their coats back.

“Oh, shush, we’re in public.”

Jack laughed at that. Yeah, Adult Jack understood Teenage Jack’s celebrity crush, but Adult Jack wouldn’t trade his current crush for nothing in the world.

Really, Chris Rob couldn't hold a candle to his man.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr](http://insertatitlehere.tumblr.com/)   
[Other OMGCP works](https://archiveofourown.org/works?utf8=%E2%9C%93&work_search%5Bsort_column%5D=revised_at&include_work_search%5Bfandom_ids%5D%5B%5D=1147379&work_search%5Bother_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bexcluded_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bcrossover%5D=&work_search%5Bcomplete%5D=&work_search%5Bwords_from%5D=&work_search%5Bwords_to%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_from%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_to%5D=&work_search%5Bquery%5D=&work_search%5Blanguage_id%5D=&commit=Sort+and+Filter&user_id=emimix3)


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